During the 2007 boating season on the St. Croix river (forming the border between Minneasota and Wisconsin), I raced my Ranger 23 Tall Rig only to find out that I could not break 3.5 knots. I posted a complaint on the MSN Ranger 23 Group website asking why I was losing races due to this lack of speed.

I had lots of tips about sails and the like but a few Ranger 23 members asked if my hull was clean. Even though I had scrubbed the boat hull with a long handled brush during the season, when I took the boat out at the end of the season, I found that the shady bottom of the boat was covered with hard-to-remove fibrous growths. The growths had formed a thin mat over much of the bottom of the hull.

In the spring of 2008, I sanded my boat bottom, keel, and rudder and applied VC 17m to the port sides and Smooth Sailing Antifouling to the starboard sides of the boat bottom, keel, and rudder.

During 2008, I was delighted at the increase in velocity, achieving speeds up to 7.1 knots and taking a second place in the Hudson to Prescott to Hudson race, even beating several J 80s.

I intentionally did not wash the boat bottom all season (7 months).

When I took the boat out at the end of the 2008 season this is what I found.

Both sides of the boat bottom, keel, and rudder had a thin layer of dead slime about 1/32 of an inch thick, except along the bottom six inches of the keel which had been scrubbed by bottom silt and sand when I had run aground a few times during the season.

The Port side (VC 17m) had a lot of blue (my original bottom paint) showing through and was virtually gone on the rudder. The starboard side of the boat with the Smooth Sailing Antifouling was still copper colored over about 90% of the surfaces.

 
Both sides had some areas that had never been coated where the trailer cradle wheels were and also a few long lines along the bottom that had ropes holding the boat to the trailer that I was afraid to remove so had coated around. Those areas remained fiber free.

I had left a two foot long bare area on the bottom of the port side where I had a strip of Smooth Sailing, a gap with the old blue bottom paint never coated, and a small area of a Urethane Teflon coating in white. In this area, the Smooth Sailing Antifouling was still strong and untouched. There were fibers growing on the old blue bottom paint, and the Urethane Teflon coating had no fibers but did not rinse off fast like the copper bottom VC 17m or the Smooth Sailing Antifouling. The slime covering the Urethane Teflon did come off when I wiped it with a finger.

For the 2009 racing season, I will definitely be putting two coats of Smooth Sailing Antifouling copper on my Ranger bottom, keel, and rudder. Along with washing the boat bottom every two months, I expect these improvements to produce a number of first place finishes.